


undying at midsummer

by betony



Category: The Dalemark Quartet - Diana Wynne Jones
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-25
Updated: 2016-11-25
Packaged: 2018-09-02 01:49:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8647174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betony/pseuds/betony
Summary: The Duke of Kernsburgh, several Midsummers later.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nnozomi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nnozomi/gifts).



The Admiral in Chief of all Dalemark took up his title on Midsummer Eve. To say the Earls took it badly might have been an understatement. As though Navis Haddson hadn’t enough reason to lord it over them all without maneuvering yet another of his offspring into a position of high power! It was all too bad that he had been allowed to get his claws into the King before the boy had any chance to know better. Even Amil himself, usually so frustratingly blind to any social unease, seemed to sense the tension. Almost as soon as the ceremony was complete in the morning he hied himself off to the Holy Islands, gone with Ynen Navisson and the Consort of Aberath to perform yet another of their infernal experiments with steamships. 

It was left to the Duke of Kernsburgh to host the celebratory banquet, which he did with his usual understated aplomb, even taking into account that neither His Majesty nor the actual person they were meant to be honoring was present. “You have to give Navis credit for this much at least,” muttered Keril to the Countess of Aberath, not without amusement. “He doesn’t try to pretend all of this isn’t more about him than Ynen.” 

Knowing how unhappy Navis had been with his sovereign and his son’s truancy might have offered some small comfort. He had tried, in his most rational manner, to explain how it might appear — but Ynen was ship-mad and could be lured anywhere with the promise of new sailing techniques to try out, and Mitt had always been hopelessly hard-headed. So Navis smiled and toasted and endured the Midsummer sausage. When the young servingman bringing him his wine looked peaky and shaken in a way he hadn’t seen since the last Holand Sea Festival he had attended, it was almost a relief. 

Hildy noticed, too, which made things easier. She nudged Eltruda on her left quickly, and then began bleating on about needing a larger allowance to pay her dressmaker's bills, to which Eltruda bellowed back something about ungrateful daughters, which took the two of them down the steps of a row so familiar and vitriolic that no one noticed Navis pour all of his wine down his sleeve. He felt a twinge of regret: it had been good wine. Even now, it was difficult to find a sip worth taking this far North. 

He would have to interrogate the young man first thing tomorrow, he knew. It seemed his life’s doom was to be surrounded by unsuccessful assassins, ones with their entire lives before them -- lives most likely ruined by Navis's interference. It was a depressing enough thought that he excused himself from the table early. The Earls all looked relieved to a man; no hints to be had on that front. Bit of a disappointment for someone in the morning when Navis made a full recovery from his stomachache, but that pleasure he would save for later. He stopped to whisper a few discreet orders to one of the guards in the doorway and, once satisfied the other man had a good idea of which servingman to arrest, Navis made his escape. 

In his private study, Navis threw himself into an armchair and helped himself to his private store of Holand-vinted red. He felt he was rather owed a treat, after having to give up his wine earlier. He did not expect any company for the next few hours. His servants had all been given the night off. Eltruda was a devout Northerner and wouldn’t dream of leaving the hall before the Undying had been properly ushered in for the next year. Hildy, on the other hand, cared as little for the Undying as he did, but would likely spend the rest of the night letting her suitors coax her out of her temper. He ought to be pleased. To be alone with his thoughts was a luxury these days. 

Navis raised his glass and drank the King’s health out of sheer habit. Outside his window, he could hear someone — Moril Clennenson, undoubtedly — begin to strum a cwidder. Navis, raised on rattles and shouts when it came to holiday merrymaking, shuddered with a Holander’s horror of music. It came up as a counterpoint to the jollier music coming from the banquet hall, where they would have moved the tables aside for the dancing. The words weren’t any that he recognized, either from the sayings of the Adon or quotes from King Hern, but that was all right. Navis supposed the boy had the right to make up his own songs occasionally. 

Unsurprisingly his thoughts turned back to the argument he’d had with Mitt not two evenings before. As usual it had been one that ranged widely, covering topics such as Ynen’s appointment as Admiral (Navis had been opposed, but, as Mitt had bleakly pointed out, who else were they expected to trust with the job?), taxes (Mitt seemed to have the unfortunate conviction that a kingdom could be run without any revenue at all; it had been the work of years to break down that belief), which of the Earls Navis did and didn’t trust (“Just say ‘all of them’ and be done with it,” Mitt advised), the unexpected trip to the Holy Islands (“ill-thought irresponsibility,” Navis had sneered as Mitt favored him with an insolent grin) and had ended, as many of their arguments did, with the name of the Tannoreth Palace. 

Reminding the public of a popular rival claimant to the throne who had disappeared under mysterious circumstances was clearly a terrible idea, as was basing the name of what was now the seat of all power in Dalemark on one man’s whim. 

Better to commemorate her than pretend she had never been, Mitt shot back, and besides, it was also supposed to be Mitt’s own home. Surely he had the right to call it whatever he wanted. 

“Besides,” Navis had retorted out of desperation, “what would poor Biffa think?” 

There was a time when that would reliably have sent Mitt into angry, embarrassed remonstrances. Instead Mitt just met his gaze squarely. “How I felt about Maewen has nothing to do with how much I care about Biffa. And just because Biffa and the children mean the world to me doesn’t mean I love Maewen any less. You of all people should know.” 

And it had been then that Navis had realized, much to his surprise, that Mitt had grown up somewhere along the years. He supposed he might have noticed earlier, during the bloody years of the Uprising, or when Mitt had submitted to the sacrifices the Kingship would ask of him, or even that terrible night Hildy had thrown a tantrum upon learning of her father’s remarriage. Navis had had no one else with whom he might share his rage and hurt then, no one else who might possibly understand. Somehow they had become friends, true friends, the only real friend Navis had ever had, despite the years that stretched between them (though, now that he thought on it, Mitt showed surprisingly few of them and could easily have passed for the same half-grown urchin Navis had first met) — 

Navis froze. 

He appeared to have acquired another shadow. 

It was an effect of the candle one of the servants had left burning on his desk, along with the steadier light from the fireplace. That was the only sensible explanation. It was most exasperating, though, that the angle of the flickering candle-light played such tricks on his shadow. By no means was Navis a vain man, but he was rather fond of his nose, and his second shadow exaggerated it almost to the point of caricature. 

Navis reached for his cup before reconsidering and setting it down guiltily. Possibly he could arrange to let his hand shake as he lifted it, just enough to let a few drops fall on the ground out of sheer clumsiness. But despite — or perhaps because of — being raised by the stingiest man in Dalemark, Navis had always prided himself on being a generous host. He poured out another cup of wine before he could think better of it, and set it on the desk beside his own. Then he sat back in his chair, looked straight ahead, and waited. 

There was something about Midsummer, Navis thought unhappily. It was that which set the Singer boy plucking on his cwidder strings in the moonlight outside. It was that which sent even a sensible Southerner like Mitt raring off to the Holy Islands, duties be damned. 

Within the room, it was silence still. Navis wasn’t sure why he found that disappointing. Hadn’t he been relieved to get a bit of peace earlier? Nevertheless the quiet was unnerving. Downstairs, he could hear the dancing-music slow. Moril played on, his music now the cheerier counterpoint. 

“I suppose I’ll have to keep him from having his portrait made from now on,” he announced, feeling rather stupid to be talking to an empty room. “But on the other hand, I won’t have to wonder if he’ll die of a plague before his heir is of age. There’s that, even if there will be questions.” He frowned. Hadn’t Mitt mentioned once, in that confused way he used when talking of the Undying, that Ammet had a trick of seeming old and young by turns? Perhaps his precipitous voyage hadn’t been as blockheaded a decision as Navis had assumed. 

“More trouble than it’s worth,” Navis decided, and a breeze fluttered the candle flame, so that his second shadow seemed to dance and bob his head. 

The music downstairs stopped, and even Moril seemed to decide he finally needed a rest. Navis sighed. 

“I’ve seen him through this much already,” he said. “I see no sense in stopping now.” 

Cheers echoed from the hall, and a low chuckle too. The roar of it sent a gust through the room that blew the candle out. Navis got to his feet with no little sense of relief. This did rather upset some of his plans: Navis had planned to mint coins with the Amil’s profile on them, the better to foster a sense of connection between the common man and his King. He would have to replace it with the crowned wheatsheaf, as tired as they all were of it. Moreover, if Amil was not going to have an official portrait painted, someone was going to have to. Navis resigned himself to being the unlucky soul. He could make a production of using royal funds for it, and insist on hanging it up in the main palace instead of his private quarters, and the Earls would be so happily scandalized at this new example of Kernsburgh’s perfidy that they would not find time to discuss anything else. 

Mitt would return, in two weeks’ time, with hair that was hopefully a trifle more grizzled and a face appropriately wrinkled, and Navis would look at it and be relieved and not say anything. One day they would have to talk about it; Navis hoped it wouldn’t be soon. For now it was enough to wait and be warned. 

For now, he meant to clean the room up. Eltruda would be up to bed soon. She did so hate untidiness and, whether as Duke or hearthsman, Navis did so hate to disappoint her. He walked to the desk and stopped. There, beside a half-burned candle, sat two winecups, both drained to the dregs. 

Navis attributed it to an aging man’s flagging memory, and took them away.

**Author's Note:**

> Written thanks to nnozomi's brilliant prompts and my own conviction that Alhammitt favors his namesake and Osfameron has his descendant, but the One's favorite will always be Navis Haddson, cunning, ruthless unbeliever that he is.


End file.
